Redemption

Ive seen some pretty nasty consoles in my time.... Their going to find Jimmy Hoffa in a retro console.

Funny I was actually just looking at yours just now. Looks great. Wish I had the right kind of monitor to go with mine. Thats way cool.

Adding mine to the pile. If there is any other information you want me to get I will be happy to do so, just bear in mind I am pretty new to the Atari so I may need to have it broken down for me dummy style. 479368 AV 173284 9/29 Atari / 402

Will do, but if anyone knows anything about the questions I asked that would be awesome

Oh man...... thats not cool... I bet theres a good story there though

Thank you. I try to operate on the basis of respect for the item. The other day while researching I ran across a YT video of a guy literally smashing an atari 400 to absolute pieces on his bedroom floor while going (oh ok so this is how this is put together.) I couldnt believe what I was seeing. I felt my stomach do a flip and I backed out of the video feeling pretty grossed out.

good to know I ended up giving the top a good scrub as well as the bottom with soap and very hot water, being careful not to get the bottom tags wet. The castings on these have almost like pores and there was dirt in all of those pores, looks A LOT better now post a good scrubbing. my RF to cable converter piece shows up on Wednesday so I suppose all thats left is to wait, plug it in and see what I have going on. But I do have a sort of side question. I know Atari 400 units were sort of the base units (mostly from reading these forums) but I know in all things collectable there is always a small chance that theres something special about a given unit, or run of units or model etc etc and since I dont know what those are where Atari is concerned I figured I would ask if there is anything special about this unit that I aught to know? and what I should be on the lookout for where special units are concerned. Bearing in mind that I dont have a whole lot of money invested in this item I thought it kind of odd but the guy who sold it to me kept saying that he thought there might be something special about this unit......very likely a selling tactic that didnt bring even the smallest amount of excitement to the purchase for me (Im always weary when people say stuff like that) Anyway maybe you guys can tell me what you think.

I've got it turning on now. Turned out to be a problem with the interlocking switch

Oh I have Carts. Just havnt tried plugging them in yet. In fact they were the first thing I cleaned before registering with this site =)

Packed it all back into a pile that can be plugged in (top and keyboard disconnected. plugged it in and the power is now kicking on fine with the door shut. (I bet that plunger wasnt in the right spot when I was testing before. I before reassembly I popped the ram boards off and cleaned them (didnt see any dirt come off those contacts so I didnt bother to do the ram ports. I didnt clean the cart port either because Im not sure what the proper procedure for that is. Plugged it in, kicked it on and im getting a red light now and a sound at the speaker that doesnt sound like a beep.....sounds like a bad speaker making a clicking sound? So now I have a bunch of new questions to irritate you Atari Veterans with. 1. The beep that Ive read about that I should be getting when I power the unit on. (Instant or delayed?) 2. What is the accepted procedure for cleaning the ports on these things? 3. What is the typical stance on cleaning of the plastic? 4. Do people generally prefer for the plastic to stay in its yellowed state or do people typically do the retrobrite style treatment to re whiten these? 5. I was reading on another post that this will work? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0028MXOF6?ie=UTF8&tag=atariage&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0028MXOF6

That plunger might not have been pushing the switch down all of the way. With the PCB isolated and the power switch pushed down by hand I am now getting power at the light.

Ah yes I did have that pushed down as I was testing. as a side note the plastic plunger thats attached to it when assembled likes to stick in the down position so ill have to suss out why later.

You are speaking above my knowledge level. "The standard de-oxit clean and re seat routine" <-----all of this I understand. Most of what you said after that made a whistling sound when it passed through my skull.

Im not following. Bear in mind, First Atari. Break it down dummy style for me.

I used canned air after and isolated the part prior. No grit found its way anywhere it shouldnt have. it also didnt take a lot to get the crust off with 1000 grit. Other method used prior to try to clean the connectors failed. I should be able to grab a cheapo multi meter from HF tomorrow but I was really hoping to get some good advice on what to check next once I get back from HF with a new multi meter. Anything I can check tonight would be a bonus. These things dont have any kind of a lockout chip or anything like that in them do they? As in (there needs to be a cart in the machine to get it to turn on?)